This week was quite the week – Matt started off the week saying that our house was going to be a zoo and it definitely was! Since all of the trim inside has finally been painted, a bunch of the subs could begin their work.

Transoms

The interior transoms were completed this week which included having each piece painted, the glass installed, and putting the final trim up. They look fantastic too! I love how they help divide the rooms up but still make the rooms feel open to each other. We toured a couple of homes that had these and knew that we definitely wanted them in our house.

Transoms were added and painted this week. We contemplated buying them pre-made but now I’m glad we had them custom made on site…they look fantastic!

Plumbing

A lot (but not all) of the plumbing fixtures were installed this week and they’re looking good! My mom and I were out there on Tuesday to choose where we wanted each piece of the plumbing fixtures (the slab guys were there to drill the holes). And then the plumbers were also there to install the fixtures. My favorite faucets hands down are the ones in the kitchen. We ended up choosing Rohl’s high arc country kitchen faucet with the sidespray and the filtered water faucet. The filtered water faucet was actually cheaper to install at the sink than to have it built-in to the fridge. And this way I’m actually gaining fridge/freezer capacity and don’t have to worry about the kids spilling water on our hardwoods. Plus, it’s such a cute faucet…who could resist?!?

All of the other faucets except for the guest bath sink faucet was installed – and they still need to install most of the shower parts & pieces in the house.

The kitchen faucet is by far my favorite faucet in the entire house. I love the ceramic handles and even the drinking water faucet on the left.

The prep faucet in the island is just the right size. After having to reduce our sink size to fit in the cabinet depth I was worried it wouldn’t fit.

Before they installed it, the faucet in the laundry room looked huge, but now that it’s in – it looks just right!

We went with a stainless Brizo faucet in the bar. Eventually the air gap on the left will be switched out with the disposal button…gotta pass inspection first though.

This is the faucet we chose for the master bath and the upstairs powder room.

Here is one of the shower heads in the master – the rain shower. We set it extra high so that Joel would easily fit underneath it.

I love the boys’ bath faucets – we went with American Standard Portsmouth Collection.

HVAC

The HVAC guys were at the house this week installing our thermostats – of which we chose NEST. I like that they have one app for everything – including smoke/carbon monoxide detectors and we’re hoping that they stay more up to date with their apps & technology as compared to the other thermostat brands. We’ve heard good and bad things about NEST but hopefully in the long run it’ll work out for us that we invested in that technology. The HVAC guys also installed all of the “trim” for the house – including the vent covers and intake vents. One word of warning – these guys had FILTHY hands – which I can now see all over our white ceilings. Next time I’d definitely ask them to wash their hands before installing all of the vents – I guess I need to teach more than my kids to do that, apparently it’s not common sense for adults yet. The HVAC guys also installed our heat pumps this week too – they’re back under the mudroom deck and since we’ve had some warm days – it’s already been tested and the cooling is definitely working!

Lighting

I took a couple days off this week and my mom and I headed to the house to help with the lighting – placement, heights, etc. There’s so many different lights in the house, and although I’ve labeled them the best that I can, we still needed to be on site to help with the placement. I absolutely loved picking out all of the lights for the house though. Matt said that most people would go to a lighting showroom and pick all the lights out from one person and be done with it. Of course, I did this with the plumbing and really didn’t like it – I ended up having to choose plumbing fixtures from tiny images in a catalog. So for the lighting I bought everything on my own and just had them there for the electrician to install. This meant that I could buy them from wherever I wanted and I was able to buy them when places were having sales. Most of my fixtures I acquired over the last year and did end up getting really good deals on them including some favorites from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. But other ones I was able to buy vintage light fixtures and refinish and rewire to make them workable for our home.

Two “schoolhouse” light fixtures I purchased from Second Use in Seattle and they’re actually from Joel’s elementary school in Tacoma! In September of 2015 Wainwright was demolished to make way for a new intermediate school and Second Use was able to save some of the original fixtures – of which I was able to buy two of them. After a quick cleaning and re-wiring, they were ready to be installed in our mudroom bathroom and pantry!

Another one of my favorite fixtures are the pendants that we used in the downstairs bar. I ended up picking up some vintage fixtures from the Midwest on Ebay last year for $17 each! Score!! My parents helped me strip three of them down to the original brass. They were painted over and with years of dirty and grime, it took some real elbow grease to make them shine. Each one took about 2 ½ hours to strip and I was so thankful that my parents helped me with it, because it would have taken me three times as long without them!

I found this fixture on craigslist last year and painted it with Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint. I also rewired and put a different chain on it. I love the way it turned out and how it fills up the room.

This is the pendant in our entry – it was a little tricky to install without having all of the glass pieces fall out, but now that it’s up – it’s totally worth it.

My in-laws purchased this glass fixture for a housewarming gift for us and we’ve hung it in the dining room.

These are the brass fixtures we stripped and rewired for the bar downstairs. With edison bulbs they really put off such a warm light.

Our capiz chandelier in the kitchen eating area has such a fun, beachy look.

The ceiling fixture was from Joel’s elementary school and fits perfectly in the mudroom bathroom.

Exterior Painting

Finally the exterior of the house was also painted this week! Such a transformation to see it all white – finally! I’m glad that we waited to paint it until now otherwise it would already be showing the dirt from the construction – but boy was I getting tired of seeing the yellowish color of the siding and trim. Now that it’s all white (Sherwin Williams’ Pure White) it looks even better! It took me a while to decide on the white – I was originally going to use Benjamin Moore’s Simply White but in the end looked a little to creamy. I think SW’s Pure White ended up being the best one since it looks like a true white, but not “bright” or blue like some of the others that I tested.

The exterior painting on the house started this week. I’m loving the way it’s turning out!

We also painted samples for the door color and taped them up there to see how they looked with the overall house color. Originally I was thinking of painting it black – there’s a lot of white houses with black doors and they look phenomenal. But I wanted to be able to see the door hardware, and since all of the exterior hardware is oil rubbed bronze, that meant that I’d need a chrome front door handle to be able to see it against a black door. My friend Sarah was surprised that I was thinking of a black door (since she has one and hates it) and quickly turned me in the direction of having a gray door. Sarah helped me tons on this one and flipped through her SW color deck and suggested a handful of grays that may work well. After a quick trip to SW to see which ones she was thinking of, I chose three sample pots. And after being up on the house, ended up choosing SW’s Serious Gray – it’s the top one in the photo. I can’t wait to see what it looks like once the door is truly painted, but I think it’s the perfect one – and that the oil rubbed bronze hardware will look phenomenal with it!

We narrowed it down to three front door color choices – and ended up choosing the top one – Sherwin Williams Serious Gray

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This week was Spring Break for Cameron and I was out of town for a work event so I wasn’t at the house too much. The painting continues to be the main star of the show for the house progress. They finished painting the trimwork for the basement and have moved on to painting the trim upstairs. My absolute favorite part of the house that was painted this week is the fireplace – hands down. It turned out fantastic and seeing it all in white really make such a difference. We’re both thrilled!

The great room was all taped off this week so that all the trimwork could be sprayed.

The fireplace was painted this week and looks phenomenal.

Here’s a closeup of the fireplace painted. It’s still wet which is why it looks so glossy, it’s toned down to a satin finish now.

Every surface in the dining room was covered in plastic. It screams Dexter. Yikes!

The kitchen now looks to be the prep zone for the painters. Good use of the double islands!

The stair risers were also painted white this week. We opted for white risers and hardwood stairs.

The other major thing to see progress is the bar countertop downstairs. We selected fantasy brown quartzite with a leathered finish. It has a great texture and just the right mix of gray and brown to tie into the java cabinets. For the backwall of the bar, we had a custom bar drain made – at 5’6″ long, it’s really a focal point. We won’t have the taps installed right away, but since the countertop needed a cut-out for the drain, we had to have that created sooner rather than later. The drain will connect into the sink drain, so it’ll be super easy to clean. And the sink was installed as well. It’s coming together – Joel couldn’t be happier!

The lower level of the bar counter was installed this week.

The bar drain was also installed and turned out really well. We custom ordered this from a company in California and they did a phenomenal job.

The bar sink was installed too – and the quartzite seam to the left of the sink is book matched with the next slab.

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My absolute favorite tile was installed this week behind the range in the kitchen. The tile installer did such a fantastic job installing the tile too…it looks fantastic! This tile is Mosaique Surface’s Artemis Cold – a pattern of honed cararra velato and polished white thassos. We’re still waiting on some trim tile to border the subway tile in other parts of the kitchen, so until that arrives, it won’t be grouted.

The range tile is truly a focal point underneath our hood in the kitchen.

A closer look at the backsplash tile. We installed it rotated 45 degrees (“on-point”) which created an X pattern in the tile detail.

The fireplace tile was also installed this week – originally I was contemplating changing this tile to something different, but after realizing that we can’t return the tile and whatever I would order otherwise would take a few weeks, I quickly decided against it. I honestly have no idea how this looks with the slabs on the fireplace hearth because they’ve been covered with cardboard. Hopefully once grouted and the cardboard is removed they’ll look just fine together though! If not…I’m sure Joel will let me redo it 😉

The fireplace tile was installed this week.

The remaining slabs were installed in the kitchen this week as well. I was actually out at the house dropping of the staircase handrail and they were out there installing the slabs. It was pretty crazy to see how they lift those giant slabs and get them in place. Definitely takes some strong guys and a couple of gripper things. I was glad I was there too – I was able to choose the direction that the veining was running in the slabs. They look SO GOOD too!!! We used the same absolute white quartzite that we selected for the other areas of the kitchen.

This week there’s been a lot happening at the house this week including continuing on the trim work – there’s tons to do still including wrapping all of the doorways and baseboards. And the painters were also there painting doors and other trimwork. But I barely even took pictures of those since the best thing about this week was all of the countertops and tile that were installed! The absolute white quartzite was installed throughout the main level and it looks ‘absolute’ly amazing!

The countertop was installed around the farmhouse sink this week. The slabs weren’t long enough so there’s a seam right behind the sink (which is curing underneath the cardboard). The two pieces are bookmatched though so the joint matches up perfectly.

Here’s a full shot of the sink area in the kitchen. The sink base is missing the feet/trim and then it’ll be all done!

I think the paint color looks pretty good with the counters too. And check out our hood! I still can’t wait for all of the crown to be installed!

The pass through turned out fantastic and looks directly into the great room. Hello fireplace! This set of cabinets has more of a furniture look without the toe kick on the bottom. I really like that we inset the center cabinets too.

I love how the butler’s pantry is turning out. I selected a piece of the stone that’s mainly white – just a little bit of gray in two of the corners. Something different for in there!

The corbels were installed on the serving island in the kitchen this week. They’re bigger and even better than what I was anticipating.

We used the same quartzite in our master bath. Other updates in here is that my makeup vanity area was lowered to the correct height and my sink base was replaced (originally it didn’t have a white interior).

Joel’s countertop was also installed – mainly gray with a little white.

The powder bath also got the same countertop. We’ll have to add some differences with the cabinet hardware we choose!

The fireplace is really coming together now. Originally I wanted to use a gray soapstone with white veining for the hearth, but since we had extra of the quartzite we used it…it’s still beautiful and we saved money. Love that! This week Matt and I also discussed the design of the mantle and trimwork up to the ceiling. They also installed the railing in the overlook area to the right of the fireplace.

So now that the fireplace hearth is installed, and I’m not 100% sure about the tile that my mom and I picked out for the fireplace surround. Originally we picked out 3″x6″ tiles from Walker Zanger’s Rue Pierre Antique Gris Marble. Now I’m not so sure about it. It’s definitely similar colors as the absolute white quartzite, but has more of a striped white/gray pattern to it. I’m wondering if maybe something more consistent in color like cararra marble will look/flow better. For the record, my mom actually liked the carrara better originally. It’s pretty similar to the hearth quartzite though…too similar? Ah dilemmas!

The slab was installed on the fireplace bench/hearth on Friday too. Now I’m not so sure about the tile I picked out for the fireplace surround (right) which is Walker Zanger Gris Antique Marble. Maybe I should just stick to a carrara marble (left) although not in the 1″ square size.

Carrara marble – the only pieces I had at the house were 1″ squares from our master shower. If used on the fireplace I definitely would choose a larger shape.

The laundry room floor was installed this week (still missing the grout), and so were the counters! We went with MSI’s Sparkling White Quartz which has some green glass and mirror flecks in it for the counters and kept it simple with Daltile’s Octagon Dot floor tile in white. Once the white grout is installed it will tone down the patterning in the floor for sure!

Daltile’s Octagon Dot floor tile was installed this week along with the quartz countertops. The Kohler sink looks fantastic too!

It’s really hard to capture the countertops in this room – none of the pictures really do it justice, but you can sort of see the glass and mirror flecks in it here.

The flooring in the mudroom was also installed this week – actually weekend! They were out there installing it on Saturday when I was there for a visit. We went with 12″ x 24″ Florida Tile’s “Mingle” in the Cool Summer color set in a 1/3″ stepped offset pattern. The vanity, sink and countertops were also delivered from Restoration Hardware this week for the mudroom bathroom. I chose the Cartwright Powder Room Vanity with the Italian Pietra Grigio Marble top.

The mudroom tile was installed this week as well. It’ll eventually get a light gray grout – the same color used in the boys’ bathroom downstairs.

The vanity for the mudroom arrived from RH this week as well – once flooring goes in, it can be assembled…maybe Monday?

And downstairs, lots of things happened this week too! The hardwood flooring was installed, although by the week’s end it was covered with a protective layer of Ram Board which I think will stay on it until we’re ready for cleaning and moving in. The new narrower sink base arrived for the bar and looks fantastic! The sink barely fits in it, yikes! Hopefully it’ll work still though.

The boys bathroom flooring was also grouted. Although one piece of tile needs to be replaced – someone dropped a tool on it (probably when installing the door) and the tile broke. Once that’s done the floor (and grout) will be complete. The counter tops and sinks were also installed in the boys’ and guest bathrooms. The boys’ countertops I selected are a gray/blue color – Wilsonart’s Quartz in Amalfi Coast and the counters in the guest bath is Pental Quartz’ Grey Savoie.

The flooring was installed in the basement downstairs too…it looks sooo good!

The new sink base arrived and was installed in the bar this week. You can see that the stainless sink in there just barely fits!

The boys bathroom flooring was grouted and their countertops were installed!

The powder bath also got the hammered sink and counters installed. It’s going to look so good in here once all of the hammered pewter finishes go in.

At the beginning of the week, the Skyline Tile and Marble were out measuring for the bar downstairs and for the farm sink placement in the kitchen. Then I went to their shop in the afternoon on Monday to choose where I wanted the counters to be placed on the slabs. We ended up having to purchase two slabs since the bar is in a U-shape and we needed the graining of the counters to all be in the same direction. There’s so much left over though! We may end up using it for a backsplash. We’ll see how much that’ll cost! My mom and I chose these slabs back in October at META Marble and Granite. They’re fantasy brown quartzite with a leathered/textured finish. With the gray & brown that they have, they’re going to look great with the cabinetry and room color.

These pieces are the front and side of the bar which I placed to avoid the larger brown spot in the slab towards the top/middle of this slab.

This is the back of the bar and if we end up doing a full height backsplash back there it’ll come off of this slab.

And finally, there has been some sunny storms over the past couple of weeks…check out that rainbow!

This week the absolute biggest change has been the installation of the hardwood floors. They were able to install the entire first floor and they look fantastic! We ended up choosing a hand scraped and wire brushed 8″ European Oak in a natural finish by Plank. We originally wanted a white oak finished on-site but because the basement is a slab on grade they didn’t recommend us installing solid hardwoods down there. I didn’t want the upstairs hardwood to be different from the downstairs so we ended up choosing an engineered hardwood that could be installed both upstairs and downstairs. It took us quite a while to pick out the flooring – the colors and finishes really vary brand to brand and so does the warranties. The Plank brand had the wide planks that Joel wanted, the color I wanted, and with more than 80% of the boards being at least 6′ long (Some brands have little lengths of boards that makes the floors look really choppy). I really like that the color was a warm almost neutral color that didn’t have a pink or white tint (like some of the others we saw), and I really like that the boards have some knots to add character. The finish has a 50 year warranty and a lifetime structural warranty – they were a little pricier, but it was the warranty that sealed the deal for us. Some brands we saw only had a 2 year finish warranty…no thanks!

Plank Classic French Oak Flooring

They started with the dining room upstairs! It was so exciting to see it being installed!

The hardwood flooring upstairs was completed by the end of the day on Friday.

More of the cabinetry and moulding were installed this week as well. My favorite cabinet in the entire house has to be the hood above the range. The cabinet company (Canyon Creek) didn’t have anything that I liked so I ended up being able to custom design the exact hood that I wanted. I absolutely love it. And it will look even better once the crown moulding is installed around the top of the hood (and on top of the cabinets). The butler’s pantry was installed too – love the upper cabinets with the “X” design! The glass still needs to be added, but I think they look great even now. And I haven’t decided yet if we’ll install glass shelving in the uppers too…my mom and aunt caution me against glass shelves because of the dust that will show with all of the natural light in the house. Downstairs, we ended up deciding to reduce the width of Joel’s bar by 6″, and the backside of the bar was installed with the dark java stained wood. It’s still missing the trim pieces, but it’s coming along!

The custom hood looks AMAZING!! I love that I was able to design this and I think it turned out so much better than I could have imagined. They did a great job creating it!! And it’ll look even better once the crown moulding and fancy tile goes in the backsplash.

I love the upper cabinets in the butler’s pantry and my mom already bought the cutest Rose bottles to decorate with in here! It’ll looks even better with the wine fridge!

Joel’s bar downstairs is turning out great. Trimwork still needs to be added to frame out the backside to give it some character.

The farmhouse sink was also installed this week. Choosing this sink took me quite a while. I knew that I wanted a really wide sink and initially I was looking at the 40″ Rutherford Sink from Shaw Sinks, but it wasn’t available in USA so I would have had to drive up to Canada to pick it up or had it shipped directly from the UK. The sink was actually considerably cheaper in the UK, so shipping would have been affordable. The problem was that based on reviews online, some sinks have arrived cracked since they’re fireclay. And since they’re handmade there could be some undulations in the sink bottom that may not flow all the water to the drain. The thought of having puddled water in the sink wasn’t that appealing to me. Also, some people have had cracking in the glazing finish overtime. With raising two boys (plus Joel) I knew there was no way that I could have a sink that wouldn’t hold up to their abuse. I ended up choosing the Kohler Whitehaven Apron Sink which is cast iron and during demonstrations people took hammers to it. I figured – that’s the sink for us! The only downside is that it doesn’t come in a 40″ size…their largest was 36″. A small sacrifice for big time durability and availability. The size works great and fits really well in proportion to the center window above.

Love the farmhouse sink! Now the countertop company can come back next week and template this countertop for the sink opening. The feet are still missing on this base cabinet, but don’t the floors look good?!?

A lot of the interior doors were installed as well. And windows and doorways continue to be wrapped and some of the baseboards have been installed in the rooms that are getting carpet (bedrooms + playroom). The baseboards are 6″ tall, just like the trim above the doorways.

The doors, door trim and baseboards were also added this week. This is Cameron’s bedroom door & closet.

On Monday, morning I picked up 5 bathroom sinks for the house from Fergusons. Luckily they open at 6:30 so I was back at the house by 8am when Skyline Tile and Marble came to template for the countertops. I spent about an hour with them to drop off the sinks as well as go over the overhangs and layouts that I wanted in each room. Most were pretty standard, but it was good to talk about some of the detailed areas – like the kitchen pass through and the eating space on the kitchen island.

Tuesday I met the Skyline guys at their shop up in Woodinville to layout where I wanted the templates to be placed on each slab. We started with the bigger most important counter areas (like the kitchen islands) to make sure they had unique areas of white and gray from the slabs and we ended with some of the smaller spaces. We purchased 4 slabs of the Super White Quartzite. That gave us enough flexibility for the main areas in the house to get the look that we wanted – soft white and gray without the upkeep of marble. We ended using the slabs for the kitchen, fireplace hearth, master bath and powder bath. A couple of the spaces – fireplace and master shower bench weren’t ready for templating so we just left spaces for those to be cut next time they come out to measure.

This slab ended up getting most of the master bath which are the top, far side, and bottom templates. The center one is actually the butler’s pantry which will be unique being mostly white!

The big top template will be the pass through area from the kitchen to the great room. The lower piece is the left side of the farmhouse sink which is bookmatched on the next slab. The blank space in the bottom right corner will be saved for half of the fireplace hearth/bench and that strip of white in the middle of the slab will eventually be a space for the master shower bench’s template.

The lower left piece is the right side of the farmhouse sink and is bookmatched to the previous slab. The big template on top will be the prep island. And the one on the bottom right in gray will be the powder room vanity.

The big piece in the top will be the serving island, and we’re saving the space on the bottom for the other half of the fireplace hearth/bench.

The laundry room Sparkling White Quartz was on the C&C machine when I was there. It looks white here because this is the underside (and it’s dirty) but really it has green glass flecks in it.

This week there’s been a huge amount of progress because the majority of the cabinets have arrived and they’ve been installed as well! I can’t believe how fast they all went in…and they look great! There’s a couple little issues, but nothing major and we are so happy with them.

The kitchen is sooooo fantastic! Joel and I are so thrilled with how it’s turning out. The hood and uppers are still missing, but just getting to see the lower cabinets is so fantastic.

Here’s a view from the prep island looking back into the living room. The cabinet to the left of the pass through will be replaced. I’m not sure how but the layout is all screwed up and definitely not what we ordered.

I love this view of the kitchen…two islands and tons of windows! And check out the ceiling! Yay!!

The sink looks great centered on the windows. To the left and right of the sink will be dishwashers. Do you know it costs about the same for a dishwasher as it does for a set of drawers? Who knew! With our family and lifestyle, two dishwashers is going to be a life saver.

Here’s a look in the laundry room. None of the upper cabinets have been installed yet, but these ones are looking pretty good! The sink isn’t centered on the window, so that’s a problem. They installed a filler strip in the back corner area that I’ll have them take out to make sure that the sink is centered. I think that’ll fix it.

The bench area in front of the fireplace has been installed – still waiting on the cabinets that go in the bump-in to the left of the fireplace. The TV will eventually be mounted on the wall in the bump-in area with some shelves above it too.

I love how my vanity is turning out. The window is centered above the desk area for makeup and getting ready. That desk portion still needs to be lowered to the correct height, but they’re waiting for another piece to do so.

Joel’s vanity is massive! Well, it’s at least bigger than any other bathroom vanity he’s ever had! There’s space for everything, including a pullout laundry bin on the far right.

Just before our master closet we had a space for cabinetry to be built in for our linen closet. I love the storage this adds…and It’ll look even better with crown moulding on top!

One lonely cabinet so far in the butler’s pantry which leads from the kitchen into the dining room. Eventually there will be three upper cabinets and a wine fridge in the space to the left.

Joel’s bar downstairs is the only ones that we didn’t do white. It’s a been wood with a java stain on them. I think it turned out really great. And will be even better once it’s finished!

The back wall of Joel’s bar turned out amazing. At the last minute we changed the uppers to have glass (which still needs to be installed) and we finished the inside of the cabinet to match the exterior. I love the open shelving too…couldn’t be happier.

Here’s another view of Joel’s bar from the entrance of it. Unfortunately we think it’s just a little to wide of a space in there. So I think we’ll have the sink base cabinet (the one straight ahead) resized 6″ smaller. The open space against the far wall (to the right of the sink cabinet) is where a small 18″ dishwasher will go.

The cabinets in the boys’ bath look great and are mirror opposites of each other. The drawers aren’t huge, but I don’t think they’ll need much space and they do have 4 of them each. I think it’ll be plenty – if I had daughters on they other hand, they probably would have been designed differently.

Here’s a closer look at Spencer’s bath vanity.

The guest bath is pretty easy and simple…nothing fancy here. You can also see the flooring which was installed in a 1/3 offset ‘stepped’ pattern.

Besides all of the cabinets being installed, they also fixed the top piece of the window trim and increased the size to 6″…instead of 5″. It looks so much better and much more in proportion to what would be expected.

The top trim above the windows has been changed to 6″. I love the way it looks now!

Tile also made progress this week. The installation of our master bath flooring is complete as well as the tile in the boys’ bath and the guest bath. It’s all coming together! None of the grout has been done on any of the tile, but the installation looks fantastic. Can’t complain one bit…well, maybe about the speed of which they install…but Matt warned me about that before they even started.

The boys’ shower tile is complete! Missing grout still, but otherwise all installed.

The nook in the boys bath is finished in the same gray/blue glass tile as the border underneath the chair rail. Just gives it a bit of detail in an otherwise all white bath.

The tile in the guest shower has been finished too. I love how the gray and white stripes turned out!

The tile looks great from just peeking into the shower. None of the showers will have doors on them, so no glass to clean!

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The drywall installation wrapped up this week and it was Absolutely Amazing to walk in and see all the walls with drywall. The floors were covered with paper getting ready for the taping & mudding next week so it looked crazy clean in there too! Spencer and I visited on Saturday and had so much fun checking out each room. We also ran some errands including heading to Home Depot for some tools to take off the plumbing fixtures on our bathtub and to Sherwin Williams to check out different paint sheens. Surprisingly, Sherwin Williams has a great little coloring table for kids to sit at – perfect for Spencer!

Spencer had a ton of fun walking around the house with me on Saturday. He was my buddy today running errands and being a great helper.

The back wall of the great room definitely steals the show in this room!

The fireplace is definitely the focal point of the north wall in the great room. There will be a TV to the left of it in the bump-in area.

A view back looking at the front door & dining room.

Hands down my favorite ceiling in the house is in the dining room. Now…when are they going to arch off the drywall that’s covering the top window?

Sort of a random viewpoint – it’s looking up between the great room on the right and the kitchen on the left. The faux beams run right into each other!

The drywall really sets off the coffered ceiling in the kitchen. The windows look fantastic in here too!

The built-in bench area in the office has to be one of my favorite spots in the house.

The lower half of the drywall in the bathrooms are covered with a special coating to resist moisture and mold.

Spence was so excited that his closet was opened up again (last week the drywall crew left their tools in here and boarded it up).

Here’s the windows in the guest room.

Joel is so pumped at how his bar area is turning out – initially we wanted it fully open to the staircase, but it just didn’t work out as planned. This gives us more space for upper cabinets though…which is great!